Fog over Otrokovice

On 12 July 1932, in dense fog, a Junkers F 13 took off from the airfield beside the Bata shoe works at Otrokovice, bound for Switzerland. It crashed moments later, killing Tomáš Baťa, the man who had turned a small Moravian cobbler’s shop into one of the world’s great shoe empires. His half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa took over and kept expanding, even through the Depression. Two years after the crash, he founded an aircraft company on the same airfield. Its products would carry the name of the Bata company town, Zlín, around the world.

Gliders from a shoe company

Zlínská letecká společnost began in 1934 with gliders, then light aircraft and its own Persy engines. Its first real success was the Z-XII, a wooden two-seater designed by Jaroslav Lonek and shown in April 1935; 201 were built, plus 51 to 58 of the improved Z-212, and they were exported widely. After the German occupation the factory built Klemm Kl 35 and Bücker Bü 181 trainers for the Luftwaffe, 783 of the latter. In 1945 it was nationalised, became Zlínavion, and in 1953 took the name it carried for the next half century: Moravan.

The Trenér and the headache

Moravan’s great aircraft was the Z-26 Trenér, a tandem trainer that first flew in early 1947 and grew into an all-metal family, the Z-126, 226, 326, 526 and 726, with single-seat Akrobat versions. Nearly 1,500 were built, and in the 1960s and 1970s they defined how high-performance aerobatics was flown. At the 1958 Brno air show Ladislav Bezák tumbled one end over end; his mechanic told journalists the manoeuvre was a lomcovák, Moravian slang for a stiff shot of slivovitz and the headache that follows. The name stuck.

Bumblebees and world champions

The factory also built the Z-37 Čmelák, or Bumblebee, a crop-duster developed with Let Kunovice that first flew in 1963 and was sold as far as Sudan and India. Its successor at the competition line was the Z-50, designed under Jan Mikula and flown on 18 July 1975. At the 1976 world championships a Czechoslovak Z-50 came third behind two Soviet Yak-50s; in 1978 Czech pilots flying Z-50s finished first and third and won the team title. The all-metal Z-42, Z-142 and Z-242 trainers that followed went to air forces and flying schools across Europe and beyond.

Bankruptcy and a second life

The end of communism was hard on Moravan. Sales collapsed with the old Eastern markets, the company was renamed Moravan-Aeroplanes in 2002 and went bankrupt in 2005. An Irish-owned buyer revived it as Moravan Aviation in 2006, but it failed again and closed in 2010. A new firm, Zlin Aircraft, had been set up in July 2009 to buy the type rights, buildings and staff, and it carries on building the Z-143L and Z-242L at Otrokovice. In 2013 it delivered five trainers to the Mexican Navy. In November 2023 it became ZLIN AERO.

Factories

• Otrokovice works and Zlín airfield · Otrokovice, Zlín Region — Original Bata airfield; the company’s only home since 1934

People

• Tomáš Baťa · Bata Shoes founder — Killed in a Junkers F 13 crash near the Zlín airfield on 12 July 1932
• Jan Antonín Baťa · founder — Founded the aircraft company two years after his half-brother’s death
• Jaroslav Lonek · designer — Designed the Z-XII
• Jan Mikula · chief designer — Led the Z-50 design team from 1973
• Ladislav Bezák · aerobatic pilot — His tumbling display at Brno in 1958 gave the lomcovák its name

Records and firsts

• Czech pilots flying Z-50s took first and third places and the team title at the 1978 World Aerobatic Championships
• The lomcovák family of tumbling manoeuvres was named after a 1958 Zlín display at Brno